Southampton Cruise Port Rental Cars: Desks, Sunday Hours and Parking

Southampton has five cruise terminals across two dock estates: QEII (Berth 38/39) and Ocean (Berth 46, Cunard Road, SO14 3QN) in the Eastern Docks through Dock Gate 4, and City (Berth 101), Horizon (Berth 102) and Mayflower (Berth 106, Herbert Walker Avenue, SO15 0GN) in the Western Docks through Gates 8, 10 and 20.

Which estate you sail from changes every distance on this page — Mayflower and Ocean sit about two road miles apart.

Read your cruise documents before you choose a desk, not after.

Visit Southampton says to reach the port by the M3 or M27; the Eastern Docks come off the A33 Platform Road to Dock Gate 4, and the Western Docks off the A33 West Quay Road to Gate 10, with Mayflower also reached through Gate 20 from the M271 and Redbridge Road.

Each terminal has a designated drop-off and pick-up zone and a short-stay car park, and private taxis can drop at the door. That matters when one driver drops the bags, returns the rental and comes back by cab — one way a family can split the job.

There’s no official left-luggage room in the terminals or at Southampton Central. Return the car before check-in and the bags ride along to the desk, not into storage.

The three in-town desks split along the docks. Enterprise on Western Esplanade is closest to the Western Docks; Thrifty on Floating Bridge Road, about 0.5 miles from Ocean, is the nearest we found to the Eastern Docks.

Hertz on West Quay Road sits between them — about 1.4 miles from Mayflower, with the shortest Saturday on the list.

Eight to noon. Plan around it.

Hertz’s Southampton page also lists pickup points at Nursling B&Q, Southampton IKEA and Southampton Costco, with no detail pages. Enterprise’s Southampton directory also lists East Southampton (Bitterne), West Southampton (Totton) and Eastleigh; we didn’t read their hours.

Europcar’s Southampton pages name no station address or hours we could read; they advertise a one-way from Southampton “to another location across the UK”. We left Europcar off the cards rather than guess an address.

Discover Cars lists National at Enterprise’s Western Esplanade address under “Southampton Cruise Terminal”, plus Routes Car Rental at Unit J, SO15 1GZ; neither is on a brand page we read. Treat that as a listing, not a second counter.

The airport desks are about five road miles out, a train ride and a cab from the ships.

They keep longer hours — that’s their whole case, not price.

The checker opens on a Sunday at half past ten, on purpose.

Sunday is where the in-town list falls apart — two of the three desks never open.

Try Saturday at 1 PM as well. Hertz closed at noon and Thrifty at 12:30, which leaves Enterprise in town and the airport.

Sixt’s Parkway station desk prints a 24-hour return but no opening hours, so the checker leaves it off rather than count it.

Only Sixt’s airport desk lists bank-holiday hours. Ring the branch if your date is one — and see the after-cruise page for these hours against disembarkation.

On a Sunday, Enterprise Central Docks (8 to 4) is the only in-town desk on our list that opens; Hertz West Quay and Thrifty close all day, so the airport desks five miles out are the fallback.

Enterprise on Western Esplanade opens at 8 and shuts at 4, with no after-hours returns.

Miss 4 PM and the car stays with you overnight — on your bill, not theirs.

The airport runs longer. Enterprise there is open 8 to 8 every day, Avis and Budget 7:30 to 8, and Sixt 8 to 4 at weekends.

Getting out there costs a 7-minute train from Central plus the walk, or a cab — a nuisance, not a dead end.

Book the Sunday pick-up at Central Docks only if you’ll reach it well before 4. Otherwise, book the airport.

Enterprise UK’s minimum age is 25 (30 for some car groups); Hertz sets 25 too, but lets 21-to-24s take some cars for a young-driver surcharge; Sixt rents from 21, with an underage fee that “may apply”; Europcar’s 2021 terms add a young-driver surcharge for ages 22 to 26. None of the four pages we read sets a maximum age.

Set that beside the Sunday problem and a young driver has a narrow path.

The one town desk open on a Sunday is Enterprise’s — and Enterprise won’t rent to a 23-year-old.

Hertz takes 21-to-24s on some cars only, for a surcharge, Monday to Saturday in town. At the airport, Sixt rents from 21 and opens on Sunday, 8 to 4.

Thrifty’s page printed no age rule we could read. Phone 02380 224433 before you count on it.

Under-25 charges show on the quote, not on these pages — so search with the youngest driver’s age, not the oldest one’s.

In-port parking at Southampton goes by cruise line, not terminal: ABParking, the port’s own self-park, serves Royal Caribbean, Celebrity, Fred. Olsen, NCL, MSC and Disney, while CPS valet serves Cunard, P&O Cruises and Princess.

ABP says the long-stay car parks “must be pre-booked”, and Cunard closes CPS bookings 35 days before departure. Turn up without a booking and you’ll be parking somewhere else.

Neither ABParking nor CPS prints a fixed tariff. The price depends on your sailing, so you get an online quote: ABParking at abparking.co.uk, CPS at cruiseparking.co.uk, where the figure appears once you’ve picked your cruise and entered the car (read Oct 4, 2026). We won’t print a blog’s weekly figure as if either company had published it.

The council’s multi-storeys charge £9 to £11 for the first 24 hours and £5 a day after; its seven-day examples are £39 at Eastgate Street and £41 at Bedford Place and Grosvenor Square, paid on exit (as read Sept 23, 2026). That £39 (about US$50) is the lowest weekly figure near the port we could confirm on a primary page — plus a cab to the terminal.

A reseller showed off-site park-and-ride and meet-and-greet at about £62 to £112 for eight days in September 2026, sample dates not stated. Southampton Airport sells cruise parking with a Radio Taxis transfer to the terminal included, about 20 minutes, priced by quote.

Now price a rental that waits. At an assumed £40 a day, seven idle days come to about £280 (about US$370) before any parking — our arithmetic, for a car nobody drives.

Hand it back before the cruise and rent again after.

Driving your own car in is a different sum, a parking bill, not a rental — our Southampton parking guide walks through ABParking, CPS and the off-site lots.

Dollar conversions on this page use the European Central Bank’s Oct 2, 2026 reference rate, about $1.32 to the pound. Your card will use its own.

Pick the counter you can reach while it’s open, then compare totals.

A cheaper car at a desk that shut at noon only buys you a cab to the airport.

Discover Cars’ Southampton cruise-terminal page lists National at Enterprise’s address — but its headline rate belongs to the airport, about 7 km away. Check the pick-up line in each result. Our Discover Cars review covers deposits and its Full Coverage.